{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/christmas-at-sea",
 "title": "Christmas at Sea",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Ballads",
 "book_slug": "ballads",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 5,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1890,
  "venue": "Ballads (1890)",
  "note": "This 1890 volume is the first book printing of these five ballads, but it is not certainly the first printing of each of them: the volume's own notes record that 'Ticonderoga' had already appeared in Scribner's Magazine. Whether the others were printed in a periodical before 1890 has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/ballad00stev"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-louis-stevenson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlvol28stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlou14stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/newpoemsandvaria00stevuoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemshithertounp00stevrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31291",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30659",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/441",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems,_by_Robert_Louis_Stevenson,_hitherto_unpublished"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 44,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 69,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wind was a nor’-wester, blowing squally off the sea;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The good red fires were burning bright in every ’long-shore home;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This day of our adversity was blessèd Christmas morn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessèd Christmas Day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“All hands to loose topgallant sails,” I heard the captain call.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“By the Lord, she’ll never stand it,” our first mate, Jackson, cried.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "… “It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,” he replied.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}